Isla Mujeres Social Club

19 April 2013 | Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Sunny, wind E@18-22, temp 85F

Lunch at Mangos with Gerard Watts & Helene Robichaud

We never did get to El Cid Marina. Sailing up the coast on Easter Monday, we were having such a good sail, that we decided to keep going, arriving at Isla Mujeres Marina just after noon. Off the outer harborr to Isla Mujeres, we dropped our sails and motored in through the anchorage. We were surprised to see Paul and Natalie Schnider on Renegade with the yellow flag flying from their halyard, indicating they had just arrived. We last saw Renegade in Providencia where they left heading north. And we swung past Espiritu with Liz and Chris Chesney, who we last saw in Panama.
The marina is normally full with sport fishing boats from Florida, but the season is over so it was pretty well empty. Tying up, the dock assistant said to wait until tomorrow to sign in and clear customs & immigration. After a long sail, we were grateful to take his advice and just tided up and relaxed for the day. Next morning, with coffee in the cockpit I looked out to see Paul and Cabot Lyman approaching by dinghy. We last saw Chewink with Cabot and Heidi in Roatan. So three boats whose plans like ours, change, and we meet again!
Paul and Cabot borrowed our hand-held depth sounder to check depths for Renegade's 7' draft. Hours later we had two dock neighbors as Renegade and Chewink tied up. After some waiting, some writing and some money exchanged, we were all checked in.
Then the following day, Lynn and Howard on Swift Current arrived from El Cid. Finally, Hugh and Anne Jenings aboard Serendippety arrived. So we had a full marina and had lots of rounds of lunches and dinners around the town.
But all the time we were watching for a weather window, and after a week we were ready to go. Chatting daily with Chris parker, we thought we could see a three day window beginning Friday. Chewink and Renegade, both big heavy boats, left Thursday and reported back boisterous seas and strong winds, so we waited and on Friday morning, we lefy just Serendippety alone on the dock and slipped out of Isla Mujeres in the early morning light.

These are pictures of The Hermitage on Cat Island, Bahamas. It was built single-handedly by Faather Jerome who was sent out by the Church of England to rebuild churches destroyed in the hurricanes in the early 20th century. He then converted to catholicism and built a number of Roman Catholic churches until he sought and received permission to build this hermitage where he spent the remainder of his life.